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20 Lovey Dovey Vectors for Valentines

Anna — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:55:53 +0000

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it is highly probable that lovebirds everywhere are already planning something special for V-day. And on the not-so-sappy side, it is also possible that designers everywhere are now gearing up to work on V-day projects for their clients’ valentines marketing campaign with posters, postcards and flyers. In keeping with that, here are 20 creative Valentines-themed vectors that are worth checking out:

Dinner for Two http://vector4free.com/vectors/id/197

Rose Heart-Shaped http://www.hdvector.com/Holidays/Rose-Heart-shaped-vector.html

Couple Necklace http://www.hdvector.com/Holidays/Couple-necklace-vector.html

Happy Valentine’s Day http://dryicons.com/free-graphics/preview/happy-valentines-day/

Abstract Valentine’s Day http://www.thevectorart.com/abstract-valentines-day-vector-art-807.html

Heart Valentine’s Day http://www.freevectorsdaily.com/heart-valentines-day-vector/

20 Heart/Valentine Brushes http://www.brushking.eu/474/20-heart-valentine-brushes.html

Couples Love http://filevector.com/couples-love-valentine-vector.html

Winged Heart http://www.freevector.com/winged-heart-vector/

Valentine’s Vector Heart http://www.vectorpile.com/vector/free-valentines-vector-heart/

Valentine’s Day Couple http://www.vectoropenstock.com/3000-Valentines-Day-Couple-vector

Abstract Red Tulips http://www.flowervector.com/abstract-red-tulips-vector-illustration-639.html

Free Vector Flowers http://www.nerdtreasure.com/vector-flower-free-vector-flowers-for-valentine-designs/

Happy Valentine’s Day Greeting Card Vector http://www.webdesignhot.com/free-vector-graphics/happy-valentines-day-greeting-card-vector/

Valentine’s Day Floral on Red Background http://www.webdesignhot.com/free-vector-graphics/valentines-day-floral-on-red-background/

Valentine’s Day Vector Collage http://www.vector-eps.com/index.php/2012/01/valentines-day-vector-collage/

Love Heart http://dryicons.com/free-graphics/preview/love-heart/

Breaking Heart with the Dart http://vector4free.com/vectors/id/563

Valentine http://vector4free.com/vectors/id/194

Valentine Hearts http://vector4free.com/vectors/id/473

Love Hearts Vector http://vectorgraphicsblog.com/free-vector-graphics/love-hearts-vector/

Romantic love elements vector http://vectorgraphicsblog.com/free-vector-graphics/romantic-love-elements-vector/

Tango Dancing http://free-vectors.com/tango-dancing/

Valentine’s Day Full of Love http://www.florographics.com/2012/01/25/valentines-day-full-of-love-vector-pack/

18 Best Food Print Ads for Poster Inspiration

Anna — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 07:18:16 +0000

Poster printing and design for the food industry can present an interesting set of challenges. Not only do you have to connect the brand to the message, but you have to make a connection with the target audience. Whether your goal is to be funny, to make them salivate, or educate your audience, this collection has some of the best posters for any occassion.

Mucho Burrito – As Addictive as Crack…by Doug & Serge

Frigg -Milfshake by Ruth Advertising

Heinz – Seriously Good by DDB

Fortune Deli – A cafe with a twist by Origin Beanstalk

Sasko Flour – Goodness by Saatchi & Saatchi

Liza Salad Dressings – Make new friends by Talent

Legal Sea Foods – Paul Revere by DeVito/Verdi

Calorilight – Say goodbye to calories by Euro RSCG 360

Bäckerei Tröller -Really good bread by Lukas Bausch

Cracker Barrel – Vintage Cheddar Sword by BMF

Chio Natura Chips – Simply Natural by Saatchi & Saatchi

Hellmann’s Mayonnaise – No Leftovers 3 by Ogilvy

Danacol – Don’t let the fat grab you by Young and Rubicam

Tramontina – Pro made easy by DCS

Pizza & Love – Fight for the Artic by Contapunto

Danio by Danone – Kill your hunger by Young and Rubicam

Gregg’s Jelly – Eat the impossible by Draftfcb

Aussie Fruitst – Watermelon by TBWA\Vietnam

15 Free Retro Patterns for Eye-Catching Designs

Anna — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 06:24:42 +0000

Need to add a retro or psychedelic look to your brochures, postcards, posters, and more? Use one of the amazingly free patterns below as a background in your design, or even to add an interesting touch to a single object in an illustration. Just be sure to check out the designer’s terms of use before using any of the patterns in a commercial design.

Retro Fabric Pattern by Dork Matter

Mega Star Patterns by Mel’s Brushes

Grandma’s Flowers by Mel’s Brushes

70s retro inspired floral by Seabreeze Studio

Orange retro polka dots by Powerpoint Backgrounds

Flower Power by Coco and Oli

Rage Flower Pattern 1 by Heruka

Floral pattern by alinney

Random retro rings pattern by vibepilot

Pattern Play 2 by AbsurdWordPreferred

Multidot Pattern by Deiby

Flower Pattern by MsJinx

Woven SimonEyvette

Pattern 1 -traceurTHIAGO

Grungy Vintage Patterns Part4 by ~WebTreatsETC (PSD)

Roundup of Superhero Movie Grunge Posters

Anna — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 05:43:14 +0000

Superheros inspire us in more ways than one. Sure, we all wish we had super-powers and could rule the world, but there is something deeper that superheros can inspire in us – that we have something amazing we’re capable of accomplishing. Let these super posters inspire you to discover your own superpower.

8 Websites for the Best Photoshop Tutorials

Anna — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:43:51 +0000

Inspiration is just one step towards realizing that desired design for beginners. The next step is knowing how to commit a concept into multiple layers in Photoshop. For this endeavor, you need top class resources and websites that feature kick-ass tutorials, like these ten sites:

PSDTuts, for the uninitiated, might be an incomprehensible letter combination. For the Photoshop and design neophyte, however, PSDTuts is the motherload of PSD and Photoshop tutorials updated regularly. The site is arguably the top Photoshop tutorials site in the Web today.

Tutorial9 is another unique resource for tutorials and a lot more. Aside from Photoshop tutorials (they also offer tutorials on photography, Fireworks, Illustrator, and Web development), they also provide downloads and useful articles. The perfect resource for the design noob.

Good Tutorials is a very good source for Photoshop tutorials. They also showcase a huge list of tutorials for HTML, CSS, Flash, Photography, and a lot more. If PSDTuts is the leader in Photoshop tutorials, Good Tutorials is the leader in collective tutorials.

PS Hero is a Photoshop newbie’s hero when it comes to tutorials. The site features an inspiration gallery, tutorials, and some goodies for takeaway. The site’s author and webmaster, Hero, aims to share his experience in design to many other aspiring designers.

Photoshop Tutorials is as straightforward as they come. A site for Photoshop tutorials, downloads, a bunch of creative inspirations, and other tutorials, Web designers would probably also take inspiration from the minimalist interface, clean and sleek feel, and prominent Flash slideshows of the site.

Tutzor is a Photoshop tutorials site that segregates tutorials from advanced, atypical, basic, and beyond. The site also has some freebies, a showcase for inspiration, and a separate blog.

Tutorialized

Photoshop Essentials is another great place to find free Photoshop tutorials. You can get tutorials on effects, graphic design, photo and text effects, Web graphics and design, as well as some freebies from the site.

This article sponsored by PrintPlace.com, an online printing company providing business cards, postcard printing, poster printing, brochure printing, catalogs, thank you cards and more.

11 Simple Postcard Designs That Work

Anna — Sat, 14 May 2011 06:37:43 +0000

Let’s face it: Not all of us were given the inborn genius to come up with knockout designs. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying, right? One important thing we have to remember is that a good design always begins with a good solid concept. And if you illustrate that idea clearly with a clean uncluttered design, your message will stand out probably just as well as a postcard designed by a professional. Here are some postcard examples to demonstrate.

On a final note, your postcard designs, no matter how well put-together, will not be effective if not printed by a fully capable postcard printer. The one printer we trust in postcard printing is PrintPlace. They’re a massive printing empire that can accommodate any specification designers need for their work.

10 Websites For Everything New, Cool & Inspiring

Anna — Fri, 13 May 2011 07:34:11 +0000

When design gets old, fresh inspiration saves the day. Here are ten sites that can give you that helping hand out of design ennui:

New Work (www.ilovenewwork.com) is a straightforward collective-blog-cum-online-portfolio of its members. The new and fresh contents of the site span artistic graphics to furniture design to game concepts and development and everything in between. Drop by and you’ll love the new stuff.

Visual News (www.visualnews.com) is true to its URL and its tagline, ridding you of eyeball boredom through visually appealing infographics and other similarly educational means while getting you informed. Courtesy of Column Five Media and a select few visual artists, you’ll find the articles informative and the designs inspirational.

Ffffound (www.ffffound.com) may have three F’s too many, but it’s worth typing into your browser’s address bar to experience what the site calls image-bookmarking. The site itself, being an exercise in minimalism, is worth bookmarking for inspiration (plus you avoid typing F’s into the browser again and again).

Picocool (www.picocool.com) is all about cool pics of anything cool enough to share. Perusing a wide array of cool stuff, you can get inspiration from cool art to cool eco-centric stuff to cool technology. Cool isn’t it?

The Cool Hunter’s Design section (www.thecoolhunter.net/design) is a design inspiration trove for the creatively weary. The site endeavors to roam the globe to bring you the most creative and relevant designs that inspire best.

Cool Hunting’s Design category (www.coolhunting.com/design) is another source for design inspiration that a daily visit to would do you much good inspiration-wise. They put it best when they said “Cool Hunting is synonymous with seeking inspiration.”

We Heart It (www.weheartit.com) lets you create your own Heart personal page with them, and in it you keep what you value most. A Facebook for inspirational pictures and videos, We Heart It is a melting pot of what inspires different people everyday.

Yay! Everyday (www.yayeveryday.com) is as straight to the inspiration as you get. As soon as you figuratively land, you get a dose of inspirational images and artwork (and the artists behind them) that Yay! intends on sharing to the world. No-nonsense, in your face inspiration.

Buamai (www.buamai.com) is simple in its design and purpose. They’re quite clear on their being an image bookmarking site, and quite ingenious in their members sharing some of the most interesting images you’ll see in the Web. A good place to pique your design senses.

But Does it Float’s (www.butdoesitfloat.com) pretty URL belies an inspiration powerhouse delivered by simplicity and unalloyed in beauty. With titles of poetic prose each post proceeds to unveil designs significant in a depth and scope any designer would take inspiration from.

Simple Ways to Achieve A Psychedelic Design in Photoshop

Anna — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:02:49 +0000

Got that psychedelic feeling? While the appeal and the concept behind psychedelic art and design can indeed be inspiring, few are actually artistically inclined enough to pull off psychedelic designs from the top of their head. Luckily, for those of us beginners wanting to jumpstart our own foray into psychedelia, there are some simple Photoshop methods to achieve our desired psychedelic effect.

Psychedelic Yardbirds poster design.

Psychedelic Fonts

The text in most psychedelic designs is distorted almost beyond legibility, often puffed-up in sort of gnarled balloon forms. Though of course there are many other textual deformations that lend a psychedelic undertone to designs. If you’re so inclined and your design concept can accommodate it, there are available psychedelic fonts in the Web you can readily make use of.

Psychedelic fonts are available in the Web for download.

Of course, sometimes we need to make our own psychedelic text. To this end, Photoshop’s Transform > Warp tool is immensely useful. You can go at it without restrictions or you can set work paths – it’s all you. You can even use most of the other Transform sub-categories to lend more effects to the rendered text, such as a 3D aspect.

Transform > Warp. This sample uses work paths along with the Warp tool, and a retro-inspired font.

Psychedelic Colors

Colors are a powerful part of the entire psychedelic art concept. As such, how you use colors in your design would dictate how well the final outcome would appeal to your audience. In retrospect, that’s true for all design styles, but with psychedelic designs, you are more at liberty to let your imagination have its way. As for Photoshop, you might want to check out three things (and the effect of combining them):

Filter > Blur > Radial Blur. Most of the other blur sub-categories also work fine, but for working together with the succeeding Filter tools, radial blur works excellently. A simple noise gradient overlay of different colors can already have psychedelic aspects once radial blur is applied.

Left: Noise gradient of multiple colors. Right: Radial blur applied.

Filter > Stylize > Glowing Edges. The varied colors aren’t enough to denote the radiance of the psyche. Let each color in the spectrum glow at its edges with glowing edge. Glowing colors are more psychedelic.

The noise gradient with radial blur is styled with a nebula pattern. Glowing edges filter is then applied to the result.

Filter > Liquify. Liquify is the perfect tool for all the swirls and curves characteristic of psychedelic art. Our noise gradient overlay merged down into the background layer of the Photoshop document and stylized with glowing edges can be swirled into many different directions and in limitless ways through liquify.

That’s a psychedelic color background. Noise Gradient – Radial Blur – Style Pattern – Glowing Edges – Liquify.

Psychedelic Message or Motif?

More on the conceptual side of psychedelic design: did you decide to go for it because you had a psychedelic message, or you just wanted a psychedelic motif? For both concerns, the points mentioned above work well, but in the core of your design concept, you need to know if you’re delivering a psychedelic message, or a message through a psychedelic motif.

A Pink Floyd infographic with a psychedelic motif.

Depending on your core concept, you may not even need text in your design. Whatever the case, psychedelic design just for the sake of it is indeed fun, but smart print design always factors in why a certain style is used in the first place.

Psychedelic Basics: An Overview

Anna — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:42:02 +0000

What comes to mind when someone mentions psychedelic design? Swirls of color. Puffed-up lettering. The hippie counterculture origins. For modern Netizens the first thing that comes to mind when they hear psychedelic design is its distinct quality of otherworldliness. But how exactly did this style of design come to be?

“Personal Mark” A handprint showing the characteristics of the person it belongs to.

Psychedelic Origins

Perhaps the most telling facet of psychedelic design is the etymology of the term “psychedelic.” The word is a concoction of two Greek terms. The first term means ‘psyche’ or ‘soul,’ the other means ‘to manifest.’ Basically, psychedelic, at least etymologically speaking, means to manifest one’s soul or mind. Indeed, that’s what psychedelic art endeavors to accomplish.

Psychedelic = to manifest one’s soul

Psychedelic design is only an offspring of a greater psychedelic era of counterculture in the 60’s and 70‘s. Initially, the word was used to describe the experience of indulging in hallucinogenic substances widely used along with the rock-and-roll and hippie aspects of those decades past. The term found a more wholesome use in art in which it soon became an emerging and lasting trend.

Psychedelic Art and Design

There’s much to say between the era of psychedelic drugs to the era or psychedelic digital art, but let’s skip the melodrama and complicated semantic drift and get right down to the factors that make a design psychedelic.

“Head Explosion” A psychedelic conceptual art that aptly exemplifies psychedelic design’s aims.

Psychedelic art and design is mainly characterized by vibrant and dizzying colors, and exuberant, enthusiastically distorted typefaces. The combination of grotesque imagery, colors, and gnarled font aims to give an image a life of its own. It aims to capture the human psyche in all its oddities and unfathomable patterns. In the decades of art that followed its advent, psychedelic designs were common, almost threadbare. But that vogue is past – today, can psychedelic design hold water?

Psychedelic Design in Modern Times

Obviously, posters and flyers for events with motifs of hippie rock and 60’s and 70’s nostalgia would do well with psychedelic designs. But aside from that, on what other print and Web design endeavors can psychedelic design apply to?

Psychedelic Summer Jam poster.

As psychedelic design is an attempt to illustrate the landscapes of the mind, businesses and products that have to do with imagination and the psyche can use psychedelic elements to communicate with their audiences. Psychedelic brochures, pamphlets, and even websites that have something to do with the chaotic human mind are ideal. However, psychedelic designs can overwhelm, and that is in fact often the goal (the human mind is an incomprehensible mesh of reality and imagination, after all). So when trying to communicate something other than artistic exuberance, use psychedelic art and elements in moderation.

“Sweet Dreams” A foray into the mind.

Every time a design needs to break out from the norm and reach out to impress upon its audience an impact memorable for its sheer imagination and overwhelming design, you’ll find that psychedelic art and design does the job perfectly. Eye-catching and thought-provoking, psychedelic design is the human mind committed to ink on paper.

The Latest and Absolutely Best Free PSD Templates on the Web

Anna — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:29:20 +0000

Finding the right PSD template can be quite a challenge and very time-consuming. You may have to wade through hundreds of poor quality templates before finding something remotely do-able. The following list should help you to avoid such an annoying dilemma, since it contains some of the latest and best PSD templates you could find on the Web. The best news? They are all free!

Nature Website Template

With realistic greenery, this template is as organic as they get. The layout is very innovative as well.

Modern Business

This classy template comes with a home page, portfolio page, and about page.

Red, Black, and White Template

The vibrant red with black accents looks very elegant and very hot at the same time. This versatile template can be customized to suit your needs.

Night Club Template

This is a slick template with a dark color scheme. It’s easy to use, has three columns, and comes with a flash banner to go with it.

Orange Modern

In a bold orange color with some white text and sharp angles, this PSD template is perfect for anyone needing modern look.

Black Template

With a black background, this template is stylish and ready to use.

White Template

The green tree and robot stand out on the crisp white background. The navigation bar is just below the graphic, and the two columns are accented with a hint of orange.

Layout Profissional

With crisp lines and bold greens on black, this template has a very professional look to it.

Brown Template

A boom box and grunge background make a great template for a band or recording studio website.

Summer of Love

In a nice shade of green, this two-column template gives a hippie, green vibe. The clean, simplistic layout makes navigation easy.

Artificial Casting Template

This chess game themed template comes in beautiful shades of tan and brown, the colors of classic chess pieces.

Cinema Website

For any cinema or even anyone wanting a cinema look, this high quality template is perfect. The tabs across the top make navigation easy for site visitors, and the look is very classy!

My Resort

This template comes with two columns, tabs for several pages, and has a beautiful heading. A travel agency or resort would benefit well from this template.

Sleek Template

This well-organized template comes with a gray background and nice illustration on the home page, great for a sleek corporate look.

Kerix Mix

A great layout for blogging, this PSD template will give a professional look to any website.

Choose from these stunning templates to use for your own website design to save you time, money, and a headache from web surfing too long.

This post sponsored by PrintPlace.com, the most trusted online provider of business cards, brochure printing and poster printing services.